DREAMING: Character Quality # 29

Genesis 37:2-11

     This is the account of Jacob.  Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.    Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made a richly ornamented robe for him.  When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.  Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more.  He said to them, "Listen to this dream I had:  We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it."   His brothers said to him, "Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?" And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.   Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. "Listen," he said, "I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me."   When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, "What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?"  His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

Acts 2:16-21

No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:  "'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.  Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.   Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.   I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.   The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.   And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.' 

 Who was this dreamer?

 1)      Joseph – the 11th son of Jacob.

2)      He was a teenager – 17 years old

3)      He was a grunt worker, tending the flocks with his brothers.

4)      He was honest to a fault. 

5)      Joseph was a person of great faith.  The dreams he had he believed were from God.

These last three traits are paramount for the person who would dream God’s dreams.

          God’s first dream for you is to have a personal relationship with Him through his son Jesus.  The dream fulfilled was done by the grunt work of Jesus living, teaching, and eventually dying an innocent man between two thieves crucified on a roman cross.

Psalm 126

          When the Lord brought back the captives to Zion, we were like men who dreamed.   Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy.  Then it was said among the nations, "The Lord has done great things for them."   The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.  Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like streams in the Negev.   Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.  He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.

 Whether he was in the prison or the palace, he had always maintained a deep, life-giving relationship with God.  Although he no longer lived in the Promised Land, he still walked intimately with the God who had made the promise.

Joseph never lost sight of the invisible. 

If we will walk in intimacy with God and the people He has placed in our lives, cultivating a heart to live by faith for what is invisible, we, too, can see the dream of God fulfilled in our personal life, our family, our business, our community, or our church.

What God dreams so you have?

From the Heart,
Pastor Jeff Cooper